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APA 7th ed. Citation Guide: Legal Resources

Contains the latest changes and updates to APA Style

Legal Citations

This guide contains basic examples for legal citations. For specific information and more examples, please refer to the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation (available at Sutherland Library on reserve).

For help with abbreviations, citation details, and source information, visit Fleming's In-Depth Legal Citation guide.

Citation Examples

Reference List: 

Name of Act, source and section number (year). URL (optional)

Fixing Long-Term Care Act, S.O. c. 39 (2021). https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/21f39 

  • S.O. is the source, c. 39 is the section number - this act is published as chapter 39 in the 2021 Statutes of Ontario

In-Text: 

(Name of Act, year)

Paraphrase or Quote: (Fixing Long-Term Care Act, 2021)

Specific Section: (Fixing Long-Term Care Act, 2021 s.16)

Reference List: 

This is a basic example of a neutral case law citation. If a neutral citation is not provided, use a parallel citation instead.

Name v. Name, year court identifier decision number. URL (optional)

R v Cole, 2012 SCC 53.

  • Court identifier is the acronym representing the name of a court, for example SCC for Supreme Court of Canada

In-Text: 

(Name v. Name, year)

Paraphrase or Quote: (Blueberry River First Nation v. Laird, 2020)

Reference List: 

Bill number, Title of Bill, session of Parliament, number of Parliament, year. URL (optional)

Bill C-4, An Act to Implement the Agreement Between Canada, the United States, and Mexico, 1st Session, 43th Parliament, 2020. https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-1/bill/C-4/third-reading

Provincial Bills

Bill number, Title of Bill, session of Parliament, number of Parliament, jurisdiction, year. URL (optional)

Bill 16, Police Amendment Act, 2nd Session, 36th Parliament, British Columbia, 1997.

In-Text, First Time:

(Bill number, Title of Bill, year)

(Bill 16, Police Amendment Act, 1997)

In-Text, Subsequent Times:

(Bill number, year)

(Bill 16, 1997)

The APA manual suggests adding URLs to citations where it will aid retrieval. 

Clarify with your instructor if URLs are expected, or use your own judgement. 

If a URL is included, it can be added to the end of Reference List citations: 

Privacy Act, RSC 1985, c p-21. https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/P-21/ 

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